Last Monday night (July 18), Ray Martin’s A Current Affair (ACA) program featured an in-studio interview with Andrew Fraser, a Department of Public Law associate professor at the Macquarie University in New South Wales (NSW). I didn’t know who Fraser was so I was just half-listening at the TV while Raquel and I prepared our dinner. Then, Ray mentioned who Fraser was and what he was on about. I was all ears afterwards.

I didn’t know at the time that just a couple of days ago, Fraser was the subject of an article in the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) titled Academic stirs fight over race. There is also an older article about Fraser titled Racist academic attacks Sudanese migrants in The Green Left Weekly. Here is a quote from the SMH article that basically summarised Fraser’s narrow views:

An associate professor in the Department of Public Law, Andrew Fraser, claims that African migration increases crime, says HSC results point to a rising ruling class of Asians and wants Australia to withdraw from refugee conventions to avoid becoming “a colony of the Third World”.

In the ACA interview, he expressed the same views he had when the earlier articles about him came out. Unfortunately, I didn’t record the segment so I couldn’t quote him verbatim but I believe I could still paraphrase his arguements here.

He claimed that there is a statistic that proves that a majority of crimes are done by black people. However, he was back on ACA for another interview yesterday (July 19) and there he admitted that he only found the statistic using Google and that the statistic applied to the United States and not Australia. But is this true, too, here in Australia? Probably not.

He also claimed that Africans have lower than average IQ. As supposed proof, he stipulated that the African nations are still uncivilised because they don’t have tall buildings. I didn’t realise that having tall buildings in one’s home country is a big determinant of one’s civility.

What Fraser wanted was an Australia where it’s inhabited mostly of supposed true-blue Australians. Funny, this coming from a Canadian migrant. When Ray Martin asked what Fraser considered a true-blue Australian, he replied that an Aussie should be white, has blonde hair and blue eyes. As Ray correctly pointed out, not all caucasian Aussies have blonde hair nor blue eyes. Of course, he really just meant white people when he said “true-blue Australian.”

That meant, he also didn’t want Asians in his adopted country because according to him Asians are too clever. Flattering and distasteful at the same time. I guess he just felt threatened by them (or I should say, us). Is it our fault that a lot of us Asians that migrated to Australia were required to have high education and qualifications before we could get accepted in this country? I can’t speak for other Asians but in our culture, having a very good education is highly valued. After all, you couldn’t even get a clerical job back in the Philippines unless you were a uni graduate.

I think his fears are shared by some caucasian Aussies who believe that the Asians seem to be stealing all the jobs from white Australians. It’s curious though that some of the jobs that are being given to new migrants are those that the average Aussie wouldn’t even want to apply for because of various reasons (too far away, too labour intensive, too menial, too may work days, graveyard shift, work on weekends or public holidays, etc). And some of these people are also complaining that Asians are getting jobs that they aren’t even remotely qualified for. If they were, then there wouldn’t be a demand for migrant workers for those specialised jobs.

Fraser continued that he believed in the reassertion of the White Australia Policy which was in effect from the 1890s to the 1950s. Under this unofficial policy, restrictions were placed on immigration of prohibited (read as non-white) immigrants and their possible removal from the country. I wonder how the Australia-born non-white Australians think about the possibility of them being considered second-class citizens in a country they thought of as their home their whole lives.

At the end of the Monday program, they started a poll asking ACA viewers whether they supported Professor Andrew Fraser’s ideas or not. Come Tuesday night, the result of the poll was very saddening with an 85% majority of viewers in agreement with Fraser’s views. I can only hope that the number isn’t representative of the whole Australian population. After all, not all Australians watch ACA and not everyone of them could’ve voted on the poll. Heck, I didn’t.

I wonder if any of my caucasian acquaintances secretly loathe my very presence here in Australia. Do 85% of them feel that way of me? I was a little relieved when after I’ve read an Australian forum that discussed the ACA segment where most of the posters were against Fraser’s viewpoint.

I still feel disappointed that there are still people out there who harbour views similar to that of the professor in this modern, progressive and enlightened day and age. Tonight, Fraser gets another interview at ACA’s competing program Today Tonight (TT) on Channel Seven. I just hope that all the air-time he is getting at the moment doesn’t start a promotion of racial divides in the future.

Addendum:
In order to avoid further heated discussions about this topic, I have removed the ability to make new comments on this post and hid the old comments. If you want to have your say on the matter, please go here instead. Thanks.